As humans we seem to be on a quest to classify, or pigeonhole, people. I guess we think it’s easier to pretend we understand people if we can declare, "Well, she’s an Aries," or "What do you expect? He’s in sales!"

Yet, most of the time we don’t like to be cast into categories ourselves. Let others fit into their special niches, but we want to be thought of as being cosmopolitan, knowledgeable in so many areas. And, why shouldn’t we be well rounded?

So it is that the analytics professionals and the decision makers in the SAS customer community want to be known not just as the geeks or the suits, but as pros who understand both the technology and business sides of analytics and how data can benefit an organization.

That’s a message that SAS (sponsor of this site) heard from attendees at its two big fall events, Analytics 2015 and the Premier Business Leadership Series, last year and in previous years. The techies who signed up for the Analytics agenda were interested in the management topics aired at PBLS, and the PBLS attendees voiced interest in learning more about analytics technologies.

So, later this year the twain shall meet. The two events are merging as the Analytics Experience 2016, running September 12 to 14 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, as SAS CEO and founder Jim Goodnightannounced a few months ago.

Credit: Pixabay

"Everyone can go to everything for this conference and we will have something for everyone," said Michele Reister, Senior Marketing Specialist, Retention and Loyalty Marketing, for SAS. "A geek or a suit can go to everything. It’s an opportunity for profs to learn from one another."

Now, Suggest Content Today, Reister wants potential attendees to suggest content for Analytics Experience. She said the call for content

is open now until May 1. And, you don’t have to be a SAS customer to suggest presentation or discussion topics. The top-level themes include:

Analytics

Customer Intelligence

Business Intelligence

Data Management

Hadoop

Fighting Fraud

Cybersecurity

Risk Analytics

Internet of Things

Session ideas don’t need to be based on anything as formal as a published scholarly paper. To submit your work, you�ll need a presentation title and brief abstract (no more than 300 words) of your session idea. If you do have supporting information, such as an outline or a paper, you can attach it to your filing.

You can identify the type of attendee that you believe will want to be part of a session, by job title, technical/business expertise, or industry.

Also, there are options in terms of the types of presentations that you would like to lead, including breakouts, theater sessions, e-posters, lightning rounds, and table talks. All are detailed on the SAS Call for Content page .

Once you submit your suggestion, you will be notified about whether it is accepted by the end of May. Final presentations and e-posters for accepted topics will be due by July 27.